


when in doubt, diamonds

by awkwardspiritanimals



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, mythbusters!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:54:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4111429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardspiritanimals/pseuds/awkwardspiritanimals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz has a ring and a plan.</p>
<p>(Mythbusters!au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	when in doubt, diamonds

He’s been planning this for a while now, really, just without all the details.

Fitz had pretty much decided within days of meeting her that Jemma Simmons was someone he wanted a future with. Not necessarily a romantic one, despite his crush on her; he had just known he wanted her in his life as much as she was willing to be in it, and after a while he had realized, much to his surprise, that she seemed to feel the same way.

They’d become best friends and there had been the show and their friends and five years later, that future had sort of materialized without either of them ever actually saying anything about it, until Skye had gotten everyone to conspire to get them to kiss under the guise of science and confessions had been made on the roof of the Bus, after which they had kissed for reasons entirely unrelated to science in the slightest.

And now they do talk about it, Jemma’s forehead tucked up against his neck late at night when they can’t sleep, or on the rare occasions they eat lunch without the others, or the mornings that Fitz wakes up and is bowled over by how lucky he is, and Jemma presses firm kisses against his mouth and whispers about their future together to remind him. They talk about rings and vows and maybe even a church, because it will make Fitz’s mom happy even though she’d never say anything, and an apartment that doesn’t have Skye in the next room, as much as they love her.

Now he just needs to figure out the details.

Jemma grins against his shoulder, and Fitz glances down just as she turns to look up at him.

“What?”

“You were thinking so hard it woke me up.”

Fitz laughs, “Telepathic connection sort of backfired there, I guess. Sorry.”

“Mmm, you’re forgiven. What were you thinking about with so much force?”

_Will you marry me?_ He almost asks her just then, pressed warm along his side, smiling up at him with the rising sun catching in the wild strands of her bedhead. She’s beautiful, entirely so, and he’s in love with her, entirely so, and he almost asks her right then.

“Not much,” he says instead, when anything but that one question manages to work its way through his brain, “Trying to come up with ideas to present in the meeting today.”

“Anything good I could steal?”

“Like you don’t already have a ridiculously organized list of myths that Coulson and May are sure to love.”

Jemma laughs before pressing her face against his shoulder with a sigh.

“I should get up.”

“You should stay here with me,” he responds, and she looks up at him with the glint in her eye that he loves.

“Think you can convince me that’s the better option?” she asks, leaning up to brush her lips across his.

“I don’t think you actually need much convincing,” he says, sliding his hand into her hair to guide her down to him and increase the pressure of their kiss for a few long seconds before he pulls back, “But I’ve got a few ideas.”

————–

Some time between leaving the house with Jemma and Skye and arriving at the Bus that morning, Fitz decides that the proposal needs to have something to do with the show. He spends all morning looking through his files of interesting myths for something that would work on the show and help facilitate his plans at the same time. About an hour before their pitch meeting, he stumbles across something that he thinks will work, and spends everyone else’s turn nervously bouncing his leg and fiddling with his papers, waiting to share.

“Fitz, what are you so anxious to share down there?” May asks finally, and he clears his throat, glancing down at his notes.

“Well, um, there are all these recipes on the internet that are supposed to allow you to make homemade synthetic diamonds, and I thought we could test two or three. It should be pretty interesting without being too much work, and we could even make it a competition if we split up into teams. And it should be pretty safe and cheap, er, depending on how many microwaves this one destroys,” he says, considering something on his sheet and barely containing a sigh of relief when he looks up to see Coulson nodding and May smiling slightly.

“Sounds good. I’ll trust you five to figure everything out?” Coulson asks, and the Build Team nods, “Then May and I will handle the banana peel myth and, um, double dipping, I think. That should fill 42 minutes nicely.”

Everyone clears out, and after telling the others that he’ll catch up with them so they can start planning for the next episode’s myths, Fitz calls after May, jogging to catch up to her. The older woman raises her eyebrows at him when he just fidgets with his papers, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“I, um, wanted to ask you something. For permission, actually, to, uh, do something, and I understand if I can’t and, um-”

“Fitz. Spit it out,” May says, and he nods, forcing himself to take a deep breath.

“I’m planning to ask Jemma to marry me,” he says in a rush, and she nods.

“And the two of you have talked about it? Getting married?” Fitz nods. “You have a ring?”

“I emailed my mum this morning, so she can mail me my grandmum’s ring.” May smiles then, which he figures is a good sign.

“And you want to do it during the diamond myth?” Another nod. “That’s fine with me, as long as you get all the footage you need. Congratulations, Fitz.”

He can’t help smiling as he thanks her. Now he just needs to figure out the rest of the details.

————–

Fitz wakes up to someone settling on top of him on the break room couch he’d crashed on a few hours ago, and nuzzles sleepily down against Jemma’s hair.

“Sleep deprivation myths are the worst,” she mumbles, and he laughs.

“Skye and Trip would probably agree with you.”

“At least they’re doing it for science.”

“We’re not helping them stay up for science?”

“They’re generating data for record. Posterity will remember their sacrifice, while ours is forgotten.”

“You do remember that we’re on a television show, right?”

Jemma whines, burying her face against his chest.

“Sleepy,” she says, shifting so she can tangle their legs together and get more comfortable on top of him on the thin couch. It’s not the first time the two of them have fallen asleep here during a long night of filming. “Love you.”

Fitz can feel her lips forming the words where she’s pressed them against his shirt in a brief kiss, the slight vibration of the sounds in her chest, and for a moment, he almost forgets all his plans and just asks her then and there, cuddled together on the break room couch at three in the morning between shifts helping Trip and Skye stay awake to see if driving sleep deprived is worse that driving drunk. He’s even opened his mouth to say the words when he notices that Jemma’s breath has evened out and he realizes she’s already asleep.

He laughs softly, shifting slightly so he can press a kiss against her hair.

“Love you, Jem.”

———-

Trip slings his arm over Fitz’s shoulders, and the shorter man looks up from considering his next shot at the pool table.

“So, marriage, huh?”

“What?” Fitz says, barely keeping his stick from clattering to the ground as he turns to look at Trip, who is grinning at him.

“You’re asking Jemma to marry you?”

“How did you know about that?”

“May told Coulson, Coulson told Skye, Skye told just about everyone she’s ever met. You had already told your mom, right? Because I’m pretty sure Skye called her to tell her.”

Fitz rubs at his face with his free hand, then looks up with a sudden realization, “She didn’t tell-?”

“Jemma? No way, man. You think she’d ruin the surprise like that? Around Jemma she’s gone into like, super-spy mode or something. It’s kind of hilarious. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Fitz says, and he can’t help but smile.

“I actually came over to ask if you needed any help with anything. Skye says you’re planning on using your homemade diamonds myth to do the deed.”

He stares at the pool table for a few seconds, considering.

“Actually, well, normally Jemma and I would partner up for this sort of thing but-”

“It might be hard to get everything set up with her there with you the whole time?” Trip says, and Fitz nods, “No problem. I’ll partner with her, say with this much money on the line, I need her super science powers on my side. Not that I need an excuse to work with Jemma or anything. Just figure it’s best not to raise any suspicions.”

“Thanks, Trip. Really.”

“Hey, I’m happy to do it, and happy for you two,” he replies, then laughs at the look on Fitz’s face, “I wouldn’t let Skye catching you with that dorky smile just thinking about proposing. She’ll never let you live it down.”

“Add it to the list,” says Fitz, lining up his shot, and Trip laughs again.

———–

“I don’t think you’re supposed to eat your experiment,” Jemma says from the doorway, and Fitz swallows his spoonful of peanut butter before grinning.

“Finished the experiment. Even had time to help peel bananas for May and Coulson’s experiment,” he replies, nodding at the pile of bananas in the container behind him, then holding up the one he’s eating.

“Interested in sharing?” she asks and Fitz hands over the jar of peanut butter as she moves to lean next to him at the counter. Jemma carefully scoops out a small spoonful, then reaches around him for a banana.

“How are your diamonds?”

“They look like a puddle of burnt peanut butter and charcoal. Yours?”

“They look like several clumps of iron sitting in bile, but at least I got to explain some chemistry, basic as it was, and Trip seemed to enjoy the forge. It apparently went better than Ward and Skye’s try. Skye shocked herself with the stun gun because she ‘forgot what it feels like.’”

Fitz laughs, reaching behind him for another banana.

“How many of those have you already had?” Jemma asks, nodding at the fruit in his hand.

“Six or seven. Plus half that jar of peanut butter.” He shrugs, and she laughs, shaking her head.

“You’re incredible.”

“Noted,” he says, and Jemma rolls her eyes before reaching over to catch ahold of his collar and pull him in to kiss her.

She tastes like bananas and peanut butter and tea, and Fitz turns to catch her between the counter and himself, not breaking off the kiss. When they finally pull apart, they’re both breathing heavily, and Jemma’s grinning up at him, tracing her hands up from his collar along his neck and into his curls; he rests his forehead against hers for a few moments before moving to press his lips softly against her temple.

“Eating your experiments and kissing in the break room, Leopold Fitz?”

“I broke a couple microwaves and a kitchen worth of dishware, too.”

“Your chances for Mythbusters’ Employee of the Month are dropping fast.”

Fitz can feel her laughing where she’s pressed her forehead against his neck, and he thinks about the small box his mum had sent him earlier in the week, hidden in Skye’s room because Jemma had decided years ago that she was fond of borrowing his clothes and was given to rifling through his dresser at any time. He’s suddenly glad he isn’t carrying the ring around with him, because all his careful planning might go to waste, one of her hands buried in his curls while one of his traces along the soft skin of her waist just at the edge of her shirt.

To distract himself, he uses his free hand to tilt her chin back up to kiss her again.

———-

He feels like he’s done a good job of keeping Jemma from becoming suspicious that something unusual is about to happen. Trip has helped a lot, shooting him reassuring looks when Jemma turns her back to him, but Fitz can’t completely control his nerves, fingers twitching, and he hopes she just assumes it’s his normal restless energy. They’ve busted Skye and Ward’s method, as well as Trip and Jemma’s, which means that he’s up, and the moment of truth has arrived. Jemma opens the box that supposedly contains his peanut butter diamond attempt, and he’s pretty sure he stops breathing when he hears her gasp.

“Fitz?” she asks, eyes wide as she turns to him, holding the box out in front of her, and he reaches out with shaking hands. It takes him a few tries to get his fingers to cooperate enough to actually grab the ring, his grandmother’s, and then he drops to one knee carefully.

He can feel all eyes on him, and several cameras, and suddenly everything he had planned to say, his entire carefully constructed speech, the one he’s been practicing for weeks with Skye and Trip, leaves his head. Fitz looks up at Jemma, who has tears in her eyes and her fingers pressed against her lips, and just says the first thing he thinks of.

“You’re amazing, Jemma Simmons, and I love you. And you’re my best friend, and I can’t believe my luck that I get to say that. And I want to spend the rest of my life telling you that you’re amazing, and that I love you, and that you’re my best friend. Will you marry me?” he asks, finally getting to say the words he’s been wanting to for weeks, and he’s almost sure his heart is going to beat completely out of his chest when he realizes that Jemma has started nodding even before he’s finished the question.

Fitz stands as quickly as he can manage without falling over; it takes them a few tries, since both of their hands are shaking, but eventually the ring is on Jemma’s finger, and she’s pulling him close so she can stretch up and press her lips against his.

“You’re my best friend.” A kiss. “I love you.” Another. “I can’t believe you misused science to propose to me.” Another. “I love you,” she repeats, resting her forehead against his.

Fitz can’t stop smiling.

“I really did do the experiment. We can still see if the myth is busted or not.”

“We should do that then,” Jemma says, as Fitz becomes aware that everyone is clapping for them.

“I’m sorry, you two just got engaged and you want to do science? Aren’t you supposed to want to go make out somewhere?” Skye says, even as she leans over to hug Jemma, “Although I suppose science is like foreplay for you two.”

Ward groans, “Please don’t talk about Fitzsimmons’ science foreplay right now.”

“Can we not talk about Fitzsimmons’ foreplay ever, or anyone else’s, for that matter?” says Trip, although he’s grinning.

“Can everyone just stop talking forever?” Fitz asks, although he’s pretty sure he doesn’t sound nearly as annoyed as he wants to, because Jemma has linked their fingers together and he can feel the coolness of her ring against his hand. She leans up quickly to press a kiss against his cheek, then steps away so that everyone can get to their places to finish shooting.

—————

Almost seven years, and none of them are really over the novelty of seeing themselves on television; they all still gather at Skye, Fitz and Jemma’s apartment to watch the final cuts of the episode before they air. Fitz has mostly been paying attention to Jemma, especially the glimpses of her ring that he can catch in the scenes near the end of the episode if he watches carefully for them. He grins every time, and the fact that Jemma keeps leaning back to press a kiss against his cheek whenever he catches sight of the engagement ring indicates that she’s doing the same thing.

He’s dozing towards the end of the episode, lulled by Jemma’s warmth curled up against his side, when Coulson’s voice breaks through his sleepy haze.

“To finish up this episode, the entire cast and crew of Mythbusters would like to extend their congratulations to Build Crew members Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons, who got engaged during the filming of the homemade diamond myth investigation. The diamond on her ring is very real though, we promise.”

A few still photos follow: Fitz down on one knee, the two of them kissing, both of them smiling even with their mouths pressed together, a close-up of Jemma’s hand with the ring in place. Across a photo of the two of them holding hands as they watch the electron microscope inspect Fitz’s attempt at diamonds, white text appears.

_Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons: Confirmed_

Fitz turns to their friends with a sigh, but is met only with three grins.

“I said you didn’t have to do anything!”

“Oh, yeah, like we were going to follow that instruction to the letter,” says Skye, rolling her eyes, “We could have shown the whole video, with your actual proposal and everything. That would have been way more embarrassing.”

Fitz sighs again, and Jemma turns to press a kiss against his jaw, “They did it because they love us,” she whispers, and he hums in response, “Plus, I loved your proposal, and that’s what really matters, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, tangling their fingers together so he can bring her hand up to his lips and press a kiss against her ring.

**Author's Note:**

> More Mythbusters!au, finally, because nothing is happier than Mythbusters!au. Title is an alteration to Jamie Hyneman's famous line, "When in doubt, C4."
> 
> The episode described here is a real one from season seven, and I tried to include some references to the real episode. They've also done a sleep deprivation myth similar to the one I mentioned, although I'm not sure it's exactly what I described.
> 
> Also if you eat peanut butter and have never eaten it directly from the jar, let me tell you, you're missing out.


End file.
